1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to an underfloor construction of a monorail vehicle and method of assembling the same.
2. Description of the Prior Art
In guideway vehicles, it has been a tendency to mount various equipment under the floor. Particularly, in monorail vehicles, various equipment are mounted on the opposite sides of the underfloor portion of the vehicle body. For a wiring duct for receiving wires, the wiring duct in the form of a box is mounted within an underframe or underside of the underframe.
A monorail vehicle often travels on an elevated track. Accordingly, for the purpose of improving the external appearance of the vehicle body, the overall surface of the aforementioned underfloor equipment is covered with skirts.
The underfloor construction of the aforementioned monorail vehicle is disclosed, for example, in Japanese Utility Model Publication No. 20,452/1983.
In this structure, the underfloor equipment frame is formed into several blocks and mounted on the underframe.
In the case of the underfloor construction as described above in the monorail vehicle, a framework constituting the skirts has to be mounted directly on the undersurface of the underframe. Accordingly, after the underframe itself has been fabricated, the framework is to be mounted, and therefore the manufacturing period becomes prolonged. Moreover, the operation for combining the framework and underframe or mutual frameworks is cumbersome, requiring a number of fabricating steps.
Furthermore, since various equipment are mounted on the framework, the framework is formed from rigid molded materials which in turn increases the weight of the entire vehicle body.
After the framework for forming the skirts on the undersurface of the underframe as mentioned above has been mounted, the wiring duct or various equipment have to be mounted, in which case, working space is narrow and therefore the workability was poor.
Next, a conventional wiring duct is in the form of a box, which has been fastened to a cross beam forming the underframe by means of bolts or the like. Furthermore, the wiring duct itself need be welded or subjected to plastic processing. Constituent members are often coupled together by means of screws, which work is cumbersome. Further, when both low and high voltage wirings are installed in a single wiring duct, an electromagnetic interference occurs resulting in an erroneous operation of equipment. Therefore, such an installation is not carried out. The wires are not satisfactorily fixed, and the wires tend to be displaced and damaged, the wires being short-circuited. One example of the wiring duct of this kind is disclosed, for example, in Japanese Patent Publication No. 2,642/1972.